“The Sporting Life Although the elimination of the Eskimo curlew was perhaps the most spectacular and barbaric tragedy to strike the great family of shorebirds and waders, it does not stand alone. Some forty species, ranging from the minute least sandpiper to the imposing long-billed curlew, frequented the eastern seaboard at the time of first European contact, either as birds of passage or as breeding summer residents. All, without exception, were shot, netted, or otherwise slaughtered on a fea...rful scale. Most abundant of the three curlews found in eastern North America was the Eskimo, but the most individually impressive was the sicklebird, now known as the long-billed curlew. Although its major breeding grounds were on the western prairies, it migrated along the Atlantic coastal flyway in considerable numbers. Standing two feet tall on pipe-stem legs, it swung a curving bill six inches in length. Its great size and piercing cries gave it pride of place among the shorebird kind.MoreLessRead More Read Less
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